People Are Getting Insured

Yes, the website is still broken. Yes, the system is still infuriatingly glitchy. Yes, the Obama administration needs to sort this shit out. But here is what the people who are arguing to repeal Obamacare, despite having no alternative policy of their own to help uninsured people access healthcare, are seeking to destroy: Not an imperfect website; the very lives of people who are getting health insurance for the first time in years, or ever.

It took two months, weekly visits to the jammed-up federal website and a half-dozen phone calls, but JoAnn Smith finally got health insurance Monday. It'll only cost her $3.19 a month to cover herself and her husband.

"I just instantly burst into tears," she says.

...Smith says she called the federal call center several times over the weekend, trying to get signed up. "Every day last week I called them," she says. "Yesterday morning I called early and there was like a 20-minute wait."

So she waited until Monday morning.

"This morning the most loveliest of helpers answered the phone," Smith says. "She said there was a mistake on original application, in that it said I was eligible for workplace insurance. She re-did the whole thing in record time and I don't have to copy my paystubs and get a letter from work."

Smith chose a silver-level plan from Humana, and said it was "totally mind-blowing" to see the $3.19 monthly premium, after a federal subsidy.

If you're gonna try to repeal Obamacare, you'd better have a plan to put in its place. Otherwise: STFU. (I'm looking at you, Republicans.)